River Cities' Reader | Theatre Feature StoriesThe River Cities' Reader Online - Updated daily local media website and bi-weekly newspaper that covers the Arts, Business, Culture and Politics of the Quad Cities' area.http://www.rcreader.com/theatre/features/
Mon, 03 Aug 2015 00:54:14 +0000Joomla! 1.5 - Open Source Content Managementen-gbWhere We Were, Where We Are: New Ground Theatre and Quad Citians Affirming Diversity Go "Under the Radar," May 19 through 29 at the Village Theatrehttp://www.rcreader.com/theatre/where-we-were-where-we-are/
http://www.rcreader.com/theatre/where-we-were-where-we-are/For the final production in her company’s 10th-anniversary season, New Ground Theatre Artistic Director Chris Jansen chose to direct a rather epic piece: the debuting period drama Under the Radar, which features numerous plotlines and changes of locale, and concerns our area’s gay scene in the late 1970s, with particular attention paid to the relationship of one long-term gay couple.

Based on that description, it sounds as though Jansen is tackling a Quad Cities-based, pre-AIDS version of Tony Kushner’s Angels in America.Yet when, with a good-natured laugh, she says of the mammoth undertaking, “Some idiot wrote 11 characters into it,” know that Jansen isn’t being derogatory. At least, not toward anyone but herself.

]]>mike@rcreader.com (Mike Schulz)Feature StoriesThu, 05 May 2011 12:00:00 +0000Talking Outside the 'box: Kim Furness Discusses the Curtainbox's 10-Year Historyhttp://www.rcreader.com/theatre/talking-outside-the-box/
http://www.rcreader.com/theatre/talking-outside-the-box/[Author's note: The following was written for TheCurtainbox.com, the Web site for our area's Curtainbox Theatre Company, of which I've been a proud member for nearly a year.]

Recently, Curtainbox Theatre Company founder Kim Furness and I sat down over a glass of wine – all right, maybe a couple of glasses – to celebrate her company's 10-year anniversary. She had recently taken over the directing position for the Curtainbox's latest production, Speed-the-Plow (in the wake of original helmer Philip W. McKinley’s recruitment as new director of Broadway’s Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark),and during our conversation, was happy to share her thoughts on the company’s history. (The David Mamet comedy Speed-the-Plow – featuring Erin Churchill, Dan Hernandez, and myself – runs at the Village of East Davenport’s Village Theatre from April 10 through 23, with preview performances April 8 & 9.)

]]>mike@rcreader.com (Mike Schulz)Feature StoriesTue, 05 Apr 2011 16:35:31 +0000A Third Space in the World: Arlene Malinowski Creates a Bridge Between the Deaf and the Hearing, April 9 at Augustana Collegehttp://www.rcreader.com/theatre/third-space-arlene-malinowski/
http://www.rcreader.com/theatre/third-space-arlene-malinowski/Nearly everyone who was of TV-viewing age in 1963, it seems, remembers where they were on the day President John F. Kennedy was shot. For writer/performer/instructor Arlene Malinowski, that day is especially memorable, because as she recalls, it was one of the first times that this hearing child of Deaf parents had to act as her parents’ translator.

“I’m six, I’m in the first grade,” says the Chicago-based Malinowski, “and I remember coming home from school, and they’re in a dark living room watching the television, and they’re crying. And my father says, ‘Tell me what’s on the TV,’ and my mother says to my father, ‘No, no, no, leave her alone – she’s a kid.’ But I’m like, ‘No, I can do this!’

“So I’m listening,” she continues, “and the man on TV is using a lot of big words. Words I don’t understand, like ‘assassinate’ and ‘motorcade’ and ‘depository.’ I figured out that ‘assassinate’ was ‘killed,’ but I couldn’t figure out what ‘depository’ meant. And then I remembered that Daddy deposits money into the bank, so it must mean ‘the bank.’ So I told my father, ‘The president man has been shot, he’s dead in his car, and a bank robber killed him.’

“And here’s the coda to it: They never [definitively] figured out who shot the president. So I am not necessarily wrong.”

]]>mike@rcreader.com (Mike Schulz)Feature StoriesFri, 25 Mar 2011 12:00:00 +0000True Academic Theatre: St. Ambrose Explores a National Tragedy in "Columbinus," February 18 through 20http://www.rcreader.com/theatre/true-academic-theatre-columbinus/
http://www.rcreader.com/theatre/true-academic-theatre-columbinus/For his first directorial effort at St. Ambrose University, Daniel Rairdin-Hale in April staged the ancient-Greek tragedy Oedipus Rex. This month, however, finds the school’s assistant professor of theatre tackling a tragedy that hits much closer to home.

“I remember where I was when Columbine happened,” says Rairdin-Hale, referring, of course, to the April 1999 massacre at Colorado’s Columbine High School. “It was right between my junior and senior year [at Pleasant Valley High School]. So I got to experience how everything changed. My first three years of high school were one way, and then this happened, and in senior year, everything was different. You couldn’t have backpacks, doors were locked, you couldn’t leave the building, we had bomb drills ... . It was very strange to be there during that transition.

“I mean, I’m sure there are things that high schools do now,” he continues, “where students just assume, ‘This is how it’s always been.’ You know, cameras, metal detectors – whatever. But there was a time before that.”

]]>mike@rcreader.com (Mike Schulz)Feature StoriesWed, 09 Feb 2011 18:27:58 +0000Curtain Call: Mike Schulz and Thom White Discuss Area Theatre in 2010http://www.rcreader.com/theatre/curtail-call-area-theatre-2010/
http://www.rcreader.com/theatre/curtail-call-area-theatre-2010/As we’ve come to annually expect, there was practically no end to the highlights from this past year in area theatre.
]]>mike@rcreader.com (Mike Schulz)Feature StoriesMon, 20 Dec 2010 12:00:00 +0000"Wrestling" Match: Director Scott Irelan Blends Modern Themes with Modern Tech in "Wrestling with Angels & Demons," October 15 through 24 at Augustana Collegehttp://www.rcreader.com/theatre/wrestling-match-scott-irelan-augustana/
http://www.rcreader.com/theatre/wrestling-match-scott-irelan-augustana/Augustana College opens its 2010-11 theatre season with the student/faculty collaboration Wrestling with Angels & Demons, and true to its title, the play will find its performers doing a fair share of wrestling. Yet rather than physical (or metaphysical) beings, the production’s student actors will actually be grappling with questions: What is democracy? What is the American Dream? And a question that many of us have contemplated this year: Is Rod Blagojevich really blacker than Barack Obama?
]]>mike@rcreader.com (Mike Schulz)Feature StoriesTue, 05 Oct 2010 12:00:00 +0000'Net Gain: The Internet Players Debut with Nathan Porteshawver's "The Tragedy of Sarah Klein," Opening September 16http://www.rcreader.com/theatre/net-gain-the-internet-players/
http://www.rcreader.com/theatre/net-gain-the-internet-players/It’s doubtful anyone needs to be told that launching a new theatre company – particularly in an area already rife with theatre companies – can be a risky venture, which is likely why Quad Cities-based organizations have tended to debut with relatively low-risk offerings. In 2008, the Harrison Hilltop Theatre chose to stage, as its first production, David Auburn’s intimate, four-character drama Proof; a week later, the Curtainbox Theatre Company arrived on the scene with Three Viewings, a trio of Jeffrey Hatcher monologues.

And what is Davenport native Nathan Porteshawver, the founder of the Internet Players, presenting for his new theatre company’s debut offering? An original drama that Porteshawver himself wrote.

In verse.

With a cast of 17 actors.

And nine musicians.

]]>mike@rcreader.com (Mike Schulz)Feature StoriesFri, 10 Sep 2010 12:00:00 +0000Leap of Faith: Playcrafters Presents the Biblical Musical "Hard to Believe," Opening September 10http://www.rcreader.com/theatre/leap-of-faith-hard-to-believe/
http://www.rcreader.com/theatre/leap-of-faith-hard-to-believe/"I think Playcrafters has traditionally had the reputation of being a stodgy old theatre that only does six comedies a year," says Tom Morrow, a frequent actor and director for Moline's venerable Barn Theatre. "And admittedly, we do a lot of comedies. But every once in a while, we try to stick our necks out and do something else."

That they do. In addition to the titles produced in conjunction with Playcrafters' 2009 "Diversity Initiative"- Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun and August Wilson's Fences - other recent "something else"s have included 2005's Altar Call, a debuting, religiously themed drama written by local playwright Melissa McBain,and 2008's Promises, Promises, one of only a handful of musicals the theatre has produced during its 81-year history.

And on September 10, the Playcrafters Barn Theatre will actually present something of a blend of these latter two works - a debuting, religiously themed musical - when it premieres Hard to Believe, a song-filled re-telling of the Biblical story of Job, directed by Morrow, and written and composed by Tim Stoller and Jonathan Turner. Previously staged, in workshop form, at Rock Island's defunct Green Room Theatre in 2008 and Davenport's Zion Lutheran Church in 2009, Turner says that "the whole theme of the show is about the challenges of faith, and maintaining your faith in the face of all this tragedy."
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mike@rcreader.com (Mike Schulz)Feature StoriesMon, 30 Aug 2010 12:00:00 +0000The Soul of "Wit": Lora Adams on the Curtainbox Theatre Company’s Cancer Drama, and Her Own Struggles with the Diseasehttp://www.rcreader.com/theatre/the-soul-of-wit-lora-adams/
http://www.rcreader.com/theatre/the-soul-of-wit-lora-adams/(Author's note: I'm a proud ensemble member of the Curtainbox Theatre Company, and along with interviewee Lora Adams, am serving as co-associate producer on Wit.)

"When you hear that word - cancer - it's very surreal," says WQPT-TV Director of Marketing Lora Adams, regarding her 2008 diagnosis with the disease. "There's a moment when the reality of it not being a television show, or not happening to somebody else's family, has to sort of settle in. You have that moment of 'Holy crap.' And then once that happens, you move forward."
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If you're familiar with local theatre, you're likely familiar with the work of Michael King, whose area credits include performances for the Playcrafters Barn Theatre, the Prenzie Players, the Harrison Hilltop Theatre, (the now-defunct) Ghostlight Theatre, the Circa '21 Dinner Playhouse, and - in numerous productions over the past five years - Rock Island's classical-theatre organization Genesius Guild.

Yet as King explains (with a laugh), if you've seen him anywhere on stage, you've likely seen him at his best.

"I suck at real life," says King, who turns 40 on July 7. "I do. You know, I make appointments and I miss 'em, I'm late with bills ... . Everything. But on stage, I'm able to be me.
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